Prosecutor Says F.B.I. Agent Misled Superiors About Informer

By JOSEPH P. FRIED

Published: March 4, 1997

A Federal prosecutor accused a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent yesterday of misleading his superiors about a Mafia figure's crimes in order to keep the mobster as an informer.

The prosecutor, Valerie Caproni, also contended that the former agent might have leaked confidential information to the mobster, and she suggested that he had perjured himself in testifying about his role.

But despite the extraordinary accusations by one Federal law enforcement official against another, the prosecutor insisted that the actions of the F.B.I. agent, R. Lindley DeVecchio, would not justify throwing out the murder convictions of two other mobsters, as defense lawyers have argued.

In that case, lawyers have said that the prosecution of their clients was tainted by the relationship between Mr. DeVecchio and the informer, Gregory Scarpa Sr. The lawyers want new trials ordered.

The statement yesterday by Ms. Caproni came at a hearing in Federal District Court in Brooklyn in which Mr. DeVecchio, who retired last year, had denied feeding confidential information to Mr. Scarpa.

Defense lawyers have argued that Mr. DeVecchio, seeking to generate evidence for arrests, used Mr. Scarpa to foment a war between two Mafia factions in 1991 and 1992.

The warfare, which took the lives of 10 mobsters and an innocent teen-ager, was the basis for some of the murder-conspiracy charges on which one of the convicted men, Victor J. Orena, was convicted in 1992.

Mr. Orena had led one of the factions in the warfare, which were fighting for control of the Colombo crime family. Mr. Scarpa, the informer, was a battle commander in the other faction at the same time that he was a major source of information for Mr. DeVecchio, who at the time was supervising a unit that investigated the Colombo family.

F.B.I. agents who worked with Mr. DeVecchio have said they suspected he helped Mr. Scarpa escape arrest and track down supporters of Mr. Orena. The Justice Department investigated the reports and said last year that it had found no ground to prosecute Mr. DeVecchio.

Mr. Scarpa, who pleaded guilty to murder and racketeering charges in 1993, died in 1994.

The second man now seeking to have his murder conviction overturned, Pasquale Amato, was not charged with being part of the warfare, but testimony about the fighting was heard at his 1993 trial.

At the hearing yesterday before Judge Jack B. Weinstein, Ms. Caproni, head of the criminal division in the United States Attorney's office in Brooklyn, said there was ''a strong circumstantial case that DeVecchio leaked information to Scarpa.'' But as for how the leaked information affected the trials of Mr. Orena and Mr. Amato, she said, ''It's not relevant to their guilt or innocence.''

But Mr. Orena's lawyer, Gerald Shargel, argued that it was entirely relevant, and contended that the prosecution had improperly withheld important information about the DeVecchio-Scarpa relationship. Mr. Amato's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, argued that if the juries at the men's trials had known of the information, they ''wouldn't have convicted and these men would not be serving life in prison.''

Juries that knew of the accusations that Mr. DeVecchio had leaked information to Mr. Scarpa did acquit defendants in two later trials concerning the Colombo family warfare.

Ms. Caproni said that when Mr. DeVecchio testified Friday, he ''came close to admitting the obvious -- that he had misled'' his superiors by playing down or concealing Mr. Scarpa's involvement in the wars.

She also said it had been ''horrible to watch DeVecchio sit up there and make up his answers as he went along.''

On Friday and yesterday, Mr. DeVecchio repeatedly said his supervisors had been aware of Mr. Scarpa's involvement. He said he could not recall specific conversations he had with them on the topic.